When I think about the time that I learned what it means to be a man, I remember driving down Randall Road, between Cary and Elgin, Illinois, in my Blue 1998 Ford Explorer Wagon listening to a cassette tape series of an audio book and taking notes on a small hand-held note pad with a damaged spiral across the top that made it difficult to flip to the next page -especially between shifting the gears of my manual transmission.
It was here, in the automobile that I had named Jerry, that I realized something that completely changed my life and charted a new course toward acting like the man that I was always intended to be. The content of this audiobook, and the subsequently purchased bona fide book, from which I have applied many, if not all, of the principles therein, set before me something that had never been part of my life before… a target for manhood.
I had just recently left the world of professional acting, and was trying to play the role of a responsible man by getting a “real job” and taking care of my family which now consisted of my wife and four children. It was important to me, as my oldest son was nearing double digits, that I raise him with intention and purpose, providing for him many of the things that I didn’t receive from my father(s). I originally saw this target for manhood as a great way to help me teach my sons how to be a man…
…but then it hit me…
I didn’t know what it meant to be a man, myself. The realization of the inability to train someone to do something that you’ve not done before came over me like an ocean wave. I had known for a long time that children model themselves after what they observe their parents do, more than simply what they tell them to do, and so I was concerned, to say the least.
I had to humble myself enough to learn these skills myself, before I tried to train my children. It was funny, because I had recently written a silly rhyme into a children’s theater script that was exactly this point.
“How can you travel down a path that is hidden,
Unless you’ve a map, or a guide who has ridden
The same way before you?”
I think God had a way of foreshadowing that truth in my life, before He hit me with this concept. So, I started parenting my children by changing myself into the man I needed to be first. I had to train myself to shoot for this target, so that I could have any hope of teaching my sons how to aim. This is where my research began.
Dad, You Are the Man!
That term, You Are the Man, insinuates that something you have done makes you great. I am going to respectfully submit that this is not the case. I will confess to you, and encourage you, that I had to work hard to become “the man” in my household but the truly remarkable thing that I have discovered about fatherhood, is the way this relationship gives you the benefit of the doubt and dubs you “the man” from the beginning. Your children are wired to look up to you, from the time they can focus on your face!
I see it in the eyes of the little boy we have the privilege of babysitting three days a week. Check out this picture his mother posted:
